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Women in Public Service Event to Be Webcast

Thursday, December 8, 2011 - 3:52pm

When the State Department and Sister colleges launch the Women in Public Service Project (TWPSP) with a major colloquium on Thursday, December 15, people from around the world will be able to follow much of the event in Washington, D.C., via a live stream webcast. Members of the Mount Holyoke community can also watch the webcast in the Blanchard Campus Center, where it will be broadcast live.

Hundreds of alumnae, faculty members, and students from Mount Holyoke, Smith, Wellesley, Barnard, and Bryn Mawr will join women leaders from around the world at the daylong event. The morning component of the program on the Web–featuring a keynote address by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton–will be broadcast from 10 am to 1 pm on both the State Department website and TWPSP website, which is set to go live by December 12.

In addition to Clinton, the morning's program will feature other speakers, including noted feminist and activist Gloria Steinem; Tina Brown, editor-in-chief of both the Daily Beast and Newsweek; Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund; Farah Pandith, the State Department's Special Representative to Muslim Communities; Melanne Verveer, Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues; and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

TWPSP is designed to inspire and prepare a new generation of women leaders from around the world for success in public service, politics, and government. It will identify and educate young women committed to public service, create an infrastructure of support and mentoring, and help enable more women to enter public service and political leadership. The program will host a series of training institutes that will begin this summer at Wellesley.

TWPSP--initiated by Mount Holyoke, Smith, Wellesley, Barnard, Bryn Mawr, and the State Department--is drawing corporate support from the likes of Dell and Ogilvy & Mather, as well as nonprofit participation from Vital Voices and other schools.

Updates on the events and the Women in Public Service project can be found on Facebook and on Twitter @WPSProject. To follow the December 15 event on Twitter, look for the hashtag #WPSP.